Today's consumers desire high performance liquid detergent compositions having sufficient structuring to give a rich impression and stabilize performance ingredients. External structurants for providing rheological benefits to fluid detergent compositions include those derived from castor oil, fatty acids, fatty esters, or fatty soap water-insoluble waxes. However, the required performance ingredients often complicate the addition of external structurants known in the art and may even be incompatible with them. For instance, many external structurants are degraded by performance ingredients, such as enzymes, including protease and lipase (lipase hydrolyses ester bonds present in castor oil derivatives), which are desirable for improved low temperature cleaning. They are also often incompatible with low pH and peroxide bleaches. In addition, external structurants generally require the use of structurant premixes incorporating large amounts of water. Such structurant premixes are unsuitable for compact detergents and for unit-dose applications.
Amido-gellants provide a solution for structuring fluid detergent compositions while also being compatible with a broad range of optional detergent ingredients, such as bleaches and/or enzymes. They also provide an aesthetically pleasing pour profile without negatively impacting the composition clarity. They can be formulated into structurant premixes that are entirely water-free. However, most amido-gellants require premixes that have to be heated to as high as 100° C. to reduce the viscosity to a level where they can be easily mixed with a detergent composition. Since ingredients such as enzymes and perfumes start to degrade at temperatures as low as 50° C., they must be added after the amido-gellant, and after a cooling step.
As such, a need remains for a structurant for fluid detergent compositions, that is compatible with a broad range of ingredients (including heat-sensitive ingredients such as enzymes), while also being easy to incorporate in to the composition without requiring excessive heating.